To further his training, LSH sent him to WPS’ home for direct intensive training where he practiced very hard and developed his fighting skill to a high level. For many years, LSL has regularly started training from five o’clock in the morning for about three hours outdoors in whatever weather or season. For LSL, as for other serious practitioners, hard practice is supplemented by rigorous analysis and research, always seeking to perfect one’s skill. For example, while first learning Liu (Dekuan) Style Bagua with WPS, LSL went to WPS’s home twice a week. In each two or three hour long private class, he may have learned just one skill, asking WPS to explain every small movement in detail and trying to feel it again and again. Even this was not good enough for him, feeling also the need to practice hard and try out his skill with others. LSL would test everything during his practice and fighting and then check his feeling with WPS again. Currently, he enjoys a good reputation among Beijing martial artists for his practical knowledge and skill.

LSL has been actively teaching martial arts for more than fifteen years at the Beijing Information Technology Institute, and for the Beijing Wu Style Tai Ji Quan Association and the Yin Cheng Gong Fa Association. As an assistant of WPS, he has helped organize and teach classes and seminars for many years, including assisting WPS in training many foreign visiting martial arts practitioners. In 1993, when WPS visited the United States to teach a week long workshop at A Taste of China in Virginia, he chose LSL from among his many students to accompany him as his teaching assistant.

When people study internal martial arts, a common problem is that internal fighting skill is difficult to master. Many people who practice internal martial arts for a long time find that when they try to use their techniques, either they cannot use them effectively or they apply them just like external gongfu. In order to help people to solve this problem, WPS’ system of martial arts, Yin Cheng Gong Fa offers a good training method: Neijia Quan Jiji Jingyao Shiliu Shi (The Essence Of Internal Gongfu Combative Techniques - Sixteen Postures Form), a summary of high level training and fighting experience. The Sixteen Postures Neijia Fighting Form was created by Lu Sheng Li under the direction of Wang Pei Sheng. 

LSL has studied internal martial arts from WPS and LSH for more than thirty years, practicing very hard and developing practical and effective fighting skills. From his personal experience, LSL has chosen about thirty single techniques from various internal gongfu (kungfu) styles and created this form in order to help people who are already proficient in basic gongfu to study and master actual fighting skills quickly. Everything in the form is based on internal gongfu: Tai Ji Quan, Ba Gua Zhang, and Xing Yi Quan; and also some useful skills from Tong Bei Quan, Ba Ji Quan, etc. are included. The goal is to combine the best features of these styles to offer a more efficient method for training of fighting skill. Essentially, these features are the Zhan (stick), Hua (dissolve), Jie (borrow), and Kong (empty) attributes of Taiji; the changing and footwork of Bagua; the powerful and stable internal force from Xingyi; and the quick and hard movement of Tongbei and Baji. LSL’s form attempts to combine and mix these skills together in order to make it easier to learn to fight using internal martial arts skills. 

In the study of internal gongfu, one may experience many beneficial feelings. However in real fighting people are unable to pick up the correct feelings quickly. It is easy to find people who have practiced internal gongfu for many years but cannot use internal principles in their fighting. LSL devised this form to address the difficulty in applying internal principles to real fighting and adopted the traditional idea that "to master one technique is better than knowing a thousand incompletely." Under WPS’ direction, LSL did a lot research in creating this form. Everything he has chosen is simple but useful. If one already has some basic gongfu skills of the internal styles, this form may help him to really understand actual fighting principles and let him utilize some skills quickly. 

There are more than thirty single techniques include in sixteen postures, seeking to combine simplicity and ease of use with high and deep principles. The outer form is easy to master by beginners, yet it is primarily designed for middle level practitioners to understand and master internal fighting principles and skills. Each of the skills includes not only outside movements but also internal practice. After a long time of hard practice, people should get more internal feeling from external practice, and finally forget the technical movements and everything becomes natural. How to apply internal principles in fighting is a common problem for many people who practice internal gongfu many years. This form just offers some useful examples to open people’s minds.

The following pages illustrate the skill "Bawang Shakes the Armor" from LSL’s Sixteen Posture Neijia Fighting Form adapted from his forthcoming book which is currently being translated into English.

"Bawang Shakes the Armor"

Bawang means "despot king" and was the special title of General Xiang Yu who was one of the biggest heroes in Chinese history. General Xiang was a big and strong man. He had very good martial arts skill and was very brave. He and others fought long and hard and finally overthrew the Qin Dynasty. His fighting prowess made him feared by many, so he was called Bawang. When you practice this skill, you should imagine that you are Bawang and your opponent is just your armor. The first half part of the skill is just like taking off one’s armor. The movement should be gentle and the key point is that the direction of internal force should change smoothly. The second half part of the skill is just like shaking the armor; the movement should be quick and sudden.

If your opponent wants to hit your face or grip your chest with his right hand, step leftward with your left foot, so that you move away slightly from the front of your opponent. At the same time raise your right wrist to meet your opponent’s right wrist (Figure 1). 

From the point of contact, if you feel your opponent still coming in, turn over your wrist to grip his wrist and pull down your opponent. At the same time your weight should be shifted to your left leg, moving your right foot close to your left foot and use the toes to touch the ground (Figure 2). Imagine that your left leg and right arm are integrated, so that the pulling force will be quick and powerful from the whole body without tightening your arm, causing your opponent’s heels to lift up slightly and make him lean forward. 

Change your right hand movement from pulling down to raising up, causing your opponent’s center of gravity to rise up, his heels to leave the ground and losing his balance. Shift your weight to the right leg. Step forward with your left foot in front of your opponent’s left foot. At the same time, keep raising your right hand up while holding your opponent’s wrist and passing it over your head. With your step, your body should squat down slightly and move forward quickly (Figure 3). Be careful, unless you control the opponent’s balance by gripping his wrist and shaking his root, he may counter by dropping down and moving back, thwarting the next movement. If this happens, some variations can be done. If you feel his pull-back force is big, you should turn your body left and do a Heng - horizontal movement pushing or striking. 

If you feel the opponent losing his balance, turn your body back, so that your opponent is behind your back. Shift your weight to the left leg and move your right leg back to touch your opponent’s leg, causing him to stumble. Sink your body down to form a left side bow stance (Figure 4). 

Keep gripping your opponent’s right wrist with your right hand and pulling forward and down toward your left toes. At the same time, use your left hand to also grip your opponent’s right wrist and help the right hand to pull your opponent down (Figure 5). Both hands grip your opponent’s wrist and pull from your right shoulder to your left toes in a circular arcing movement, causing your opponent to stumble over your right leg and fall down (Figure 6). This technique is called "to shake a suit of armor," where the opponent is the armor. Your arms and legs have to be closely coordinated in the last movement. The whole movement should be smooth, and a powerful and sudden force, like a quick shake, should be generated automatically at the end. You should imagine you are much stronger and powerful than the opponent. 

(Editor’s Note: Aikido practitioners may note a passing similarity to kokyunage waza, without the fajing at the end).

Zhang Yun, grand Master Wang Peisheng and Lu Shengli in San Francisco, 1993

Master Lu Shuhuan, Grand Master Wang, Zhang Yun and Lu Shengli in Beijing, 1984

Grand Master Wang and Lu Shengli demonstrated Taiji push hands in ATOC, 1993

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5

Figure 6